I sat with my back to the rock, wedged into a small ledge and took a deep breath.   Boulder was below, clear, beautiful, alive.  The sounds of a band welcoming in a weekend of CU football drifted up, birds circled above and below me.  I was halfway up the First Flatiron nestled into a natural rock seat with no gear.
I took another calming breath, smiled at the world, wiggled my toes, and turned around continuing the climb.  The freedom was exhilarating, no harness, rope, belayer, or mental thickness.  Despite my …

“Whooohoooooooooooo!”  I yelped as I came completely out of the water, skimming along its surface for a moment before plunging back in. 
James had brought his new kiteboard over from Scotland and we were playing with it in Omak Lake in Washington.  I was boardless, body surfing back and forth, learning the controls while trying to tack upwind.  It was hard, and yet easy.  Wind and hydrodynamics are things I understand very well, and so even though it is a difficult skill, I was surfing the learning curve as steep as …

Illumination, Navigation, and Celebration are the gifts of Burningman Lamplighter Camp I was part of, and so I mirror these in my post-burn writings. Illumination holds some of the greater-humanity experiences shared on the playa.  Navigation shares the oddities and facts of Black Rock City and the Burningman organization.  Celebration is my own personal flavor and experiences during the week I spent in the desert.
 
Celebration: Dancing through a Waterfall of Fire at Burningman
 Standing almost 7 feet tall, I watched the horizontal waterfall of fire wash across the desert, clearing barriers and …

Illumination, Navigation, and Celebration are the gifts of Burningman Lamplighter Camp I was part of, and so I mirror these in my post-burn writings. Illumination holds some of the greater-humanity experiences shared on the playa.  Navigation shares the oddities and facts of Black Rock City and the Burningman organization.  Celebration is my own personal flavor and experiences during the week I spent in the desert.
 
“…the difference between being “nowhere” and being “now here” is just a pause and a deep breath.”
 
Illumination holds the glow of my experience from the perspective of …

I stepped off the edge.  My mind accelerated into my body as together we slammed into the moment of ‘now’ with the intensity of fear and love, and the excitement of doing something the body was not designed for, but that the spirit craves from the deepness of the soul.
 The force of the collision pushed a shriek out of my lungs, and yet, when that shriek was finished I was still flying through the air, accelerating downward and outward, and so I quickly filled my lungs and let loose another.  …